Canvas
When she painted on her canvas
She lit her hand on fire
with the flames from her belly…
She tried to access all that was,
all that was ugly and beauty
daddy coming to get her while she screamed for
Gran and
the way the sunlight danced on his beard
when he wasn’t angry;
The way twinkle-stars lit his eyes when he was
When he hurt her;
When he drank so deeply as to fall asleep on top of her
And she tried to find momma
And tried to smell her clean soap-skin
But momma’s whisky and water shriveled her nose up
And ached her mouth to drink again.
The color wrapped themselves around her body
Until, in a flurry of consent,
It all came together in a cognoscente wink and twirl of the brush
With strokes and slashes like sunbeams
That had no holes to stream through
no memories to illuminate
no face to warm…
And for all her colorful gazing
Her canvas held no offering
of spring.
© JA Henneman 2005
